Traditional holiday cards are a bit of a nuisance. You’re supposed to buy stationary, write a bunch of lengthy, personal notes, and sacrifice however many stamps. So, although what’s offered there might not be perfect for Great Aunt Susie, the YouTube Greeting Cards site at least provides an alternative.
A post on the YouTube Blog explains, “[Y]ou can choose from dozens of holiday videos uploaded by the YouTube community. Or if you prefer, send a greeting video of your own – either select a video that you’ve previously uploaded or record a brand new one. For your convenience, we’ve also added a link on every YouTube watch page under the ‘share options’ section so you can send any embeddable video on YouTube as a greeting card.”
Then, “After you’ve selected your video, pick a theme, type in your personal message, enter the recipients’ email addresses, and voila – instant holiday cheer.”
Since this is the second time YouTube’s offered its “holiday video cards,” it seems that they’re good at achieving Google wants them to do – attracting users, generating views, or maybe just spreading cheer.
The only catch is that you’ll have to either sign in to YouTube or create a username and password. And, of course, you’ll want to find a decent video to share, which may require more than a few minutes of clip-watching.